The Titan Pack and the Future of UnrealIn our latest editorial piece we look at how the recently-released UT3 Titan Pack brought more players to the community and brought UT3 back into the limelight. More >

Speaking in Major Nelson's podcast, Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski mentions some of the cool stuff Epic and their subsidiary studios have been working on, hinting at some big announcements over the next year (thanks Videogamer)

“Our partners at Chair in Utah are working on a product that we’re going to be announcing at some point in the near future which is very, very cool,” said Bleszinski.

Perhaps we'll be hearing more at E3 then.

He added: "We have our partners at People Can Fly in Poland working on some great stuff. We’re working on things internally - I feel that I’ve got five balls up in the air that I’m juggling right now."

"It’s an incredibly exciting time. Keep your ears peeled in the next year. There’s going to be a lot of great announcements."

MTV Multiplayer is reporting that Sony is charging publishers for bandwidth used by gamers downloading their DLC via the PlayStation Network, forcing some studios to think twice before offering such content on the PS3.

The million-plus downloads that a popular demo or map pack might receive could delight gamers, but rack up some expensive bandwidth costs. No problem: the publishers, who already pay a licensing fee to get their games on the two big platforms, could count on the platform holders — Microsoft and Sony — to pay the cost of piping that digital content to gamers.

That situation changed with the PS3 on October 1 of last year, when Sony implemented a 16 cents per Gigabyte fee to publishers for paid and free downloadable content, according to publishing sources familiar with Sony’s policy.

Game publishers are not happy about it.

MTV Multiplayer has verified that a letter sent to publishers last fall detailed the policy. It applies a 16-cent charge to every Gigabyte of content downloaded from the PS3’s PSN online store. For free content, like demos, those charges apply only during the first 60 days of the content’s release. For paid content, like map packs, the charges rack up in perpetuity, or until that content is removed from the PlayStation 3’s online store.

UT3 forum poster Bersy has created a bunch of videos explaining some of the new features of the recently-released Titan Pack. Check the links below for video tutorials for Greed and Betrayal mode, as well as the new Titan mutator. There's even a HD version of each video...

UT3 lead designer Steve Polge confirms that due to delays in certifying the PS3 version of the upcoming Titan Pack, it has been delayed on that platform until March 19th. The PC version is still due for release tomorrow.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of our control, the certification process for the PS3 patch and DLC has taken much longer than we expected. As a result, we have been forced to push back the release date for the PS3 version to 3/19.

The PC patch contains updates that will improve mods cooked for PS3, so we'll be taking advantage of this extra time to work with mod authors to make sure the best mods for UT3 are cooked with the latest patch.

IncGamers takes a look at some of the hottest modifications for one of the most modded games of all time - Unreal Tournament 2004, rightfully starting with Make Something Unreal champion Red Orchestra-

There’s no better place to start talking about UT2K4 than with the grand prize winner of the Epic Make Something Real contest. Admittedly, since landing that auspicious prize, Red Orchestra has gone on to becomes a full commercial titles in its own right, but there’s no denying it was built on the source engine and began life as a mod like any other.

The brilliance of Red Orchestra is its realism. Sure, lots of games and mods have realistic physics engines, and historically accurate guns, landscapes and vehicles, but that’s not what Red Orchestra aimed for.

Instead we see a game that attempts to capture an air of realism by recreating the experience of its premise – a re-enactment of the Soviet and German struggles on the Eastern Front of World War II. There’s very little information on screen – no HUD, no radar, no artificial gun sights – all you’ve got are the iron sights on the end of your gun just as those soldiers would have had.

Matthew Rex Downham has posted a rundown of the events leading to the demise of fake Cliff Bleszinski on Twitter, also known as @cliffy_b...

It wasn't until our final tweet that we'd realized we crossed the line. We made a joke about what we knew was already a touchy subject, but we did it anyway. Not too long afterwards, the Twitter was gone. I woke up to do my morning tweet before work, and just as quickly as we made it, it was gone. My heart sunk. We always knew this day could come, but I expected some sort of warning first. Twitter had received some legal mumbo-jumbo from Epic's legal staff, and had renamed the account "NOTCliffy_b". Which instantly ruined the gig. We went back and forth with Twitter, but it seemed there was no fighting it, apparently we weren't enough of a parody. The game developer who slaps employees, crashes Lamborghinis, does squats in the bathroom and punches his boss in the kidneys wasn't enough of a parody. We learned later from Dana Cowley that she had nothing to do with the takedown; "It was very entertaining while it lasted" she told us.

G4 scored some face time with Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2004 design director Cliff Bleszinski, asking the usual mix of questions about Gears 2, its downloadable content and its recet title update. The most interesting revelation however comes at around the 5:00 minute mark, where one of the presenters asks Cliff if Epic has anything new coming soon.

Q - And do you guys have anything new coming out over Xbox Live soon?

Cliff - There's some promos which'll be coming out. There's something which'll most likely be announced tomorrow [ed - Thursday, today] which is a tie-in with a reboot of a big horror franchise that I'm a big fan of. I can't really say any more than that now.

The next multi-platform Epic title, developed by Epic-owned polish developer People Can Fly and published by EA is rumored to be a horror title. We'll keep you posted on any details that might emerge thoughout the day.

Here's some holiday silliness we missed out on last week. Epic has put a stop to an Internet prankster imitating designer Cliff Bleszinski on Twitter.

"Cliffy B" made a name for himself by updating his page with satirical comments on the games industry. One loving comment on Sony's Home read, "My guy in Home isn't nearly buff enough, and I can't kill anything. Home sucks."

Epic discovered the page, which is run by two anonymous individuals, notified Twitter and had the page renamed and the old one locked due to "allegations of copyright violations."

VE3D reports that executives at troubled Unreal Tournament 3 publisher Midway Games earned millions as the company struggled with mounting debt.

As one of the most historic companies in the video game industry crumbles into non-existence, the company’s higher-ups haven’t shouldered the burden. Despite massive cutbacks and layoffs over the past few years, the salaries of top Midway executives remained unchanged despite the company’s consistent downward spiral.
According to filings with the SEC, former President and CEO David F. Zucker made over $4.5 million in the past two years. This includes over $3 million in stock options and sold stock. Since 2003, Zucker has made just under $11 million.

The filings address his massively disproportionate compensation specifically, stating that extra compensation was awarded in order “to motivate Mr. Zucker to devote all of his energies to the company.” Since 2006, Midway’s stock value has dropped from nearly $23 to 18 cents. Zucker left Midway in March.

Last month, Sumner Redstone sold his 87 percent stake in the company to a private investor for $100,000, yet several of Midway’s top executives continue to make over four times that amount annually.

Due to the popularity of their "high-octane, low-poly" Unreal Tournament 3 map packs, the HOLP team has been left having to cough up several hundred dollars in bandwidth bills. Now they're asking fans of their work to help out with a donation towards the cost of keeping their site up and running. Donors will not only be helping out a very talented bunch of level designers, but can also look forward to early access to the HOLP3 map pack.

The holp website is about to go offline. The bill for the final quarter of 2008 finally arrived and due to the downloads doubling our 100GB limit for the month of September It is more than we can afford to pay at the moment. When converted the fines are working out at just under $400.00. We are hoping that some of you fine folks to downloaded this pack, and enjoyied it, would kindly donate some money to keep us afloat during this difficult time. Donating will place your name on a list for early access to HOLP 3 which is coming soon.

GamaSutra takes an alternative look at 52 of the key games industry figures of 2008.

Epic engine guru Tim Sweeney and Design Director Cliff Bleszinski are among their top deck...

Jack of Spades: Tim Sweeney, Epic

No other game engine out there has had such an impact as Unreal Engine 3. It is more ubiquitous than even Renderware was in its heyday, and lawsuits and quirks aside, there's got to be a reason nearly everybody uses it. Tim Sweeney, as the main architect of this beast, has opened up the market for developers looking to cut costs and prototype early, while also supporting the company's own original software.

Sure, it may not be cheap, but this little "side business" has turned into Epic's largest contribution to game culture thus far, and given Sweeney's history in game tools (see: ZZT), it's only to be expected.

3 of Clubs: Cliff Bleszinski, Epic

Most critics and developers agree that the game industry needs "faces" in order to be accepted by the mainstream in the way movies are. Gears of War's Cliff Bleszinski is such a face.

He's personable, perceptive, and with a successful enough game series to wind up on television, but also with the intelligence and care for the industry to actually say something interesting once he gets there. Bleszinski may be a little smoother than the average INTJ game developer, but for the future profile of the game industry, isn't that a good thing?

Firefly took a break from reviewing UT series maps to make one of his own - DM-Quatro2 for Unreal Tournament 3.

Hope you guys like it and please throw some feedback my way. I’m going to start on the next map tomorrow. It’s been a good learning experience catching up with the new functions of the new Unreal engine after all these years.

Big thanks to all those you gave me feedback. I hope I’ve remembered you all in the readme.